


Home Again

by TheIcyQueen



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Fluff, Gen, No Spoilers, Pre-Kingdom Hearts III, Prompt Fill, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 12:43:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17662874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIcyQueen/pseuds/TheIcyQueen
Summary: In Oblivion, they had fallen; in the Garden, they rise. How strange it is to wake up after being destroyed. At least they have each other.





	Home Again

**Author's Note:**

> A prompt fill for laurienzo on tumblr! (You can find me on tumblr as "queenofbaws," and my inbox is always open!

When he’d first awoken, face mashed inelegantly against the slick floor of the laboratory, he’d allowed himself to believe that it had all been some terrible dream. Oblivion was a state of mind, not a tangible _place;_ the only ones among their ranks who wore long, billowing coats were the researchers, and even then, they were always crisp and white, never black; certainly none of the Apprentices had _died_ in the basements, chests crackling with the agony of emptiness. He’d simply fallen, hit his head, and lost consciousness long enough to have the nightmare of nightmares. Nothing more, nothing less. 

But as his strength returned to him and he was able to prop himself up, he caught sight of the bodies strewn across the room and knew he was wrong. 

Someone was standing, maybe even muttering to themselves. Though his thoughts were a syrupy slow tangle of vague ideas and shapes, he knew immediately that the speaker was VIII or Axel or Lea--a threat regardless of name or uniform. Still, it wasn’t the traitor who caught his attention. No…no, what caught his attention was the prone figure in the middle of the room, skin pale enough that it nearly matched the rumpled fabric of his lab coat. 

_Ienzo._

He didn’t even realize his mind had switched the names until he was halfway across the lab, muscles atrophying strands of jelly that shook and shuddered with each step; he willed himself not to fall, willed himself not to stumble. Only once he reached Ienzo did he kneel, the tendons of his legs screaming from misuse and the lingering aches of what he could only assume had been a second death and a second rebirth. 

There was no sign of life from Ienzo--not at first. He laid a hand flat on his back, feeling the ridges of his shoulder blades lift and fall with tired, tentative breaths. Good. That was _good_. His eyes were caught then by the color of his own gloves, leaving him to stare dumbly at the outline of his fingers atop Ienzo’s back. It had been so, so _long_ since his gloves had been white.

A sudden shudder brought him back to himself as Ienzo sucked in a breath and coughed it out, his lungs sounding dry. He grew still under his hand again, his profile affording him a glimpse of one eye slowly opening. At first it was difficult to tell through the shadow of the Apprentice’s hair, but Ienzo cracked his eye, looked tiredly about, and shut it again. There was a moment of deflation, of worry, as he watched Ienzo seemingly drift away again…and then with a wheezing gasp of air, Ienzo sat up suddenly enough to send whorls of dust spinning through the air around them. His head snapped from side to side, eyes wide under his mussed hair. Patting himself up and down, he froze when his fingers brushed the puffed fabric of his ascot, a concerned crease appearing between his brows as he tried to piece it all together. 

“Ienzo,” he spoke softly, more from necessity than caution, his throat raw and rasped by time. “Breathe _\--breathe_.” 

He obliged, but warily, eyes still wide and watching, pale blue chips of ice in the darkness of the lab. It was only slowly that he seemed to come back to himself, the ragged rise and fall of his chest evening out to something calmer. “Aeleus?” he managed after a time, voice twisted with distraught disbelief. 

A rush of something--relief?--washed over him then, the world around them becoming more saturated, more real. “I was worried you wouldn’t remember…the head trauma, the–”

“Not remember?” Ienzo coughed another wracking cough, pressing his knuckles tight to his lips. “Don’t be a fool. How could I ever forget about _you?”_ He looked around the room again, eyes falling on Lea for a long time before he managed to wrench them away. “Are we…where are we? This isn’t…this isn’t Oblivion.”

“No,” he agreed, offering his hand to help steady him. “We’re home.”

“Home?” Ienzo cast his gaze down to the gloved hand before him, face still pale, still worried, still unsure. “Home,” he said again, as if trying to decide whether he liked the sound of it. “Is _that_ where we are?”

 


End file.
